


dust in the cabinets

by NotSummer



Series: AU One-shots [5]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Adoption, Angst, Babies, Character Death, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fatherhood, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Order 66, Orphans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 18:54:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13530474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotSummer/pseuds/NotSummer
Summary: Order 66 goes out, and Miyala doesn't survive. Her closest friend steals her ship and her child, promising that Sidhi will know the love her parents should have had to give her.





	dust in the cabinets

The transmission registers far too late. “ _ Execute Order 66 _ .” Ross stares ahead of him where Miyala is chattering brightly at Jesse, oblivious to the sudden stillness in his body posture.

Ross begins to scream, to warn his friend, to do anything, but she’s talking about the merits of the bakery a street over when Jesse’s blaster fires.

His closest friend is gone before she hits the ground.  Her vibrant, sly personality evacuates the husk of her body as it hits the ground in a soft thud. He yells and his fist slams into the helmet that the thing infecting his brother’s body is wearing.

His brother’s armor clatters to the ground. He crouches down by the cooling body of his friend, taking a second to hold her tight, to let out a sob, but he has to go. Jesse won’t stay down for long, and he thinks of the infant in their ship being watched by the nanny droid, and he has to leave what remains of his closest friendship behind. He strips her comm, her datachips, her utility and pouch, and finally her lightsabers. He takes two steps back, before finally tearing his eyes away, and runs.

He has to go.

He repeats to himself the sayings of the trainers on Kamino as he hurries back to the Occlus. The ones about how the body is just a shell and the person lives on in stories and names and weapons and armor. He clenches her lightsabers tighter, but it doesn’t help.

Miyala is still gone, and Jesse might as well be. He thinks of the wonder in Jesse’s eyes as he held his daughter for the first time, and he thinks of the quiet peace in Miyala’s face as she curled around her child, and he vows that little Sidhi will not be deprived of these things.

He slams his hand into the access panel, hurtling into the ship. Sidhi is wailing, and he closes his eyes for a second. Sidhi was Force Sensitive. She could feel the strings connecting her to her mother cut out. He shoves past the panicking nanny droid, pulling his niece to him, and she burrows tight into his shoulder, her wails turning into a quieter broken crying.

She’s too young.

They all are.

He keeps a tight grip on Sidhi as he passes the mess with everyone’s caf cups still sitting out and he has to stop and take a breath before he ends up in the cockpit. They’ll be hunting for Sidhi, and he has to keep her safe.

It’s a mantra he repeats to himself over the next few days.  _ Protect Sidhi _ . Ostensibly, it keeps him from breaking down. It’s hard to take time for himself when there’s a needy infant. He could leave her to the nanny droid, but that’s not right. She needs him. And he needs her.

_ Protect Sidhi _ .

He settles down on an isolated planet. There’s an aging couple who want to see the stars, and he uses Miyala’s old accounts to pay for the part of the house they trade him that isn’t covered by the purchase of the Occlus.

He’s pulling everything out of the Occlus when he breaks down for the first time, and it’s when his foot clatters against something in the ship’s small mess.

He looks down to see what he kicked, and when he sees the small step stool, he loses it. All the jokes, all the laughter, all the warm grins shared over coffee and Miyala’s continued inability to reach the cookie jar as Jesse and Ross and Anakin stashed it higher and higher and higher in the ship.

It’s gone, all of it, all of the good times.

It’s never coming back.

He’s never going to get any of that back, and the full weight of his grief slams into him for the first time. His knees buckle, and he hits the floor and he yells, he kicks out, slams his foot into the island. He clutches the dumb stool to him and he cries until he can’t see and his throat aches and the sun goes down.

He wants to explain to the elderly couple why it took him a few days longer than he said it would, but they give him a sad, knowing glance. He doesn’t explain. He doesn’t have to.

His next breakdown is watching the Occlus take off without him. It feels wrong. He and Miyala were running missions on that ship long before she even met Jesse. It was the ship she brought with her from her undercover stint as a pirate, refusing to give it up. The Occlus was her freedom.

He presses his fist into the doorframe, trying to keep from crying. It doesn’t work. Dammit, they all deserved so much better.

The breakdowns come further and further apart as time goes on. The worst of them is when he notices the layer of dust on Miyala and Jesse’s caf mugs in the cabinet. It’s like a reminder of how much time has gone by, and he aches with the agony of it.

When Sidhi calls him Dad for the first time, he fakes a smile, but has to go into the refresher a few minutes later. “I’m doing my best, Mi,” he whispers into the mirror. He’s glad Sidhi is taken care of, proud to be the one to take care of her, but he’s all too aware she should have been calling him Uncle. Calling him and Anakin uncle.

There’s no Skywalker on the Wanted posters for Jedi, and he tries not to think about what happened to Anakin. Dead or worse, Anakin isn’t  _ there _ . He tries not to think about Jesse either, as whispers of the Imperial army reach his ears.

In the end, it only hardens his resolve. If he is all Sidhi will ever have, then he will be the best damn father he possibly can be. He watches her fumble, her lekku growing out as she gets taller. She looks more like Miyala everyday, the same stubbornness he once saw in clear blue eyes mirrored in amber brown. Cecelia watches from her perch where she sits upon Concrete, her tail flicking as she keeps an eye on the small toddler, while keeping the much smaller cat from doing anything stupid. There’s a grey nose poking out from under Cecelia and a grey tail flicking on Cecelia’s other side, but he rolls his eyes at their antics before looking back at Sidhi.

_ You’re not losing anyone else, I promise _ .


End file.
